Harriette M. Plunkett 1826 ~

Harriette M. Plunkett was a pioneer in
the work of sanitary reform in the United States. She was born
Harriette Merrick Hodge, February 6 1826 in Hadley,
Massachusetts, and this town, though a community of farmers, had
the unusual advantage of an endowed school, "Hopkins Academy,"
which afforded exceptional opportunities to the daughters of the
town, and there Miss Hodge received her early education.

Her great interest in sanitary matters
did not develop until after she became the wife of Honorable
Thomas F. Plunkett, who in 1869 had a very important share in
the establishment of the Massachusetts State Board of Health,
the first state board established in this country. Mrs. Plunkett
became convinced that if the women of the country would inform
themselves what sanitary reform was needed in housing and
living, and see that it was put in practice, there would be a
great saving and lengthening of lives, and making lives more
effective and happy during their continuance.

To promote that cause she wrote many
newspaper articles, and in 1885 published a valuable book, "Women,
Plumbers, and Doctors," containing practical directions for
securing a healthful home and though interrupted in her work by
the necessity of reading the studies of a college course to her
son, who had become totally blind, this accomplished, she at
once resumed her pen and returned to subjects of sanitation,
though at the same time producing other articles, educational,
aesthetic, and political, for various magazines and journals.
One article, on the increasing longevity of the human race,
entitled, "Our Grandfathers Died Too Soon," in the
Popular Science Monthly, attracted wide attention.

Her great interest in the prevention and
healing of diseases also brought her before the public, and she
is probably most widely known in connection with the
establishment and growth of a cottage hospital in Pittsfield,
Massachusetts, called the House of Mercy, started in 1874, and
of which she was the president. It was the first one of its
class to be supported by contributions from all religious
denominations in the country, Mrs. Plunkett always spoke of her
own work with extreme modesty, remarking at one time, that she
merely belonged, "to the great army of working optimists."